Devil's Kettle Fall
Devil's Kettle is a section of the Judge C. R. Magney State Park. It's uniqe characteristic is that a waterfall flows into the lake and out the end, but there is no exit visible on the surface of the lake. It is believed that there is a hole of some sort deep below the surface. Devil's Kettle is located in Cook, Minesota in the United States of America. The exact location is just of the end of the 'Y' junction on the Brule River, 2.4 kilometers from its mouth. The lake is made up of rhyolite and bassalt rock. It is believed that the, 'kettle' if you will, flows into lake superior but many tests have taken place and have not been successful. Hikers and geologists have dropped bright dyes, ping-pong balls and even a GPS in their in an attempt to locate its exit. There is also a legend that a group of locals pushed a car in thee but many do not believe that as the water fall is not easily accessible by vehicle. Geologist John C. Green wrote; One theory is that, after dropping down the pothole, the river runs along a fault underground, or as a variant, that it enters an underground channel and comes out somewhere under Lake Superior. Both of these ideas have one valid aspect in common: they recognize that water must move downhill! But the main problem is creating a channel or conduit large enough to conduct the impressive flow of half the Brule River! Faulting commonly has the effect of crushing and fracturing the rock along the fault plane. This could certainly increase the permeability of the rock — its capacity to transmit water — but the connected open spaces needed to drain half the river would be essentially impossible, especially for such a distance. Furthermore, there is no geologic evidence for such a fault at the Devil's Kettle. Large, continuous openings generally do not occur in rocks, except for caves in limestone terranes. The nearest limestone is probably in southeastern Minnesota, so that doesn't help... Maybe the Devil's Kettle bottoms out fortuitously in a great lava tube that conducts the water to the Lake... Unfortunately for this idea, they are not the right kind of volcanic rocks! Rhyolites, such as the great flow at this locality, never form lava tubes, which only develop in fluid basaltic lava. Even the basalts in this area may not be the "right kind", being flood basalts that spread laterally as a sheet from fissures, not down the slopes of volcano. No lava tubes have been found in the hundreds of basalt flows exposed along the North Shore. Furthermore, the nearest basalt is so far below the river bed, and even if it did contain an empty lava tube (very unlikely after its long history of deep burial) the tube would have to be both oriented in the right direction (south) and blocked above this site so that it isn't already full of debris. And there are no reports of trees or other floating debris suddenly appearing at one spot offshore in Lake Superior. The mystery persists